Where can I go if I have a conflict with my financial institution?

If you have a dispute with your financial institution, the first step is to contact the bank's customer support service and try to resolve the situation directly.

If there is no satisfactory response, you can submit a complaint through the Complaints Book, either physical or online, which will be sent both to the institution and to Banco de Portugal.

Alternatively, you can also complain directly through Banco de Portugal's Bank Customer Portal, which reviews matters involving supervised entities.

If the dispute continues, you may turn to a consumer arbitration centre, which allows conflicts to be resolved more quickly and without having to go to court.

In practice, these mechanisms let you escalate the complaint progressively, starting with the bank and moving to independent bodies when necessary.